Guild Wars 2

It should give Swiftness and remove 1 condition on top of the invis. Probably reduce the invis duration by 1 second to balance.

That being said, the attraction in that weapon has nothing to do with the ease of using it: it gives you a ranged AoE stun. That alone is invaluable in sPvP on a slow moving sword mesmer.

Only 1 target is Stunned. Second is Dazed. Forgot what the third target picked up, Confusion I think?

Also, Focus is godlike ownage compared to that silliness. Curtain/Void is like 50x the chasedown of Magic Bullet, and it yanks them back into the Warden. One second of Warden faceroll is about as good as most of the Duelist’s volley. And bonus points for Warden’s Feedback complete domination of any range spec.

For that sort of staff build I would go:

0/0/20/30/20
Staff, Scepter/Focus

Pick up Warden’s Feedback, Staff Trait, Elasticity. I think there’s something useful in 30 Inspiration (heal on Shatter?) and get vigor on Shatter (10 point Inspiration).

Alternate: 25 inspiration, 25 illusion. This will get you Might on Shatter, and you still get the 15% phantasm damage out of inspiration.

Primary mode Staff pew pew clone shatter pew pew, swap for Warden / Curtain trolling; hit a blind and confusion beam until you can swap back to Staff pew pew.

Depending on how fast you can play, you can have perma Vigor up with a decent spread of Protection, Regen, Might. You can even throw in Retaliation if that 10pt Illusion trait is working properly.

Gear wise, Carrion. Rune-wise, try to get extended condition duration because you have 0 Dom, which kind of sucks but ohwell.

Well a phantasm build doesn’t actually have the fastest solo PvE kill rate, but the highest DPS phantasm build is pretty simple:

- 10/15/0/25/5

That’s the base build with 15 points left over. Crit/power/cond damage.

Reaper of Grenth awesome.

But Moa, Time Warp, and Mass Invis are all pretty kitten.

I have:

- Focus 4
- Blink
- Illusory Persona + Vigor on Shatter

As a result, I have nearly permanent Vigor for high frequency dodge rolls, blink, and swiftness up half the time.

Good enough.

Kind of meh, but good enough.

Mesmers are pretty much overpowered in every aspect of the game.

Which is why I facepalm at all the “QQ I suck” threads on this forum, since I’m more worried about nerfs to the class rather than getting <insert X phantasm army build> buffed for bad players.

Mantra of Pain is a good addition to an alpha burst build.

About 1 in 100 Mesmer players know how to play such a build.

They do stack.

Less bad / less misinformation, thanks.

L2p.

Read the stickies.

I don’t know, try harder.

The best weapon sets for a condition damage build is Staff + Sword-Pistol. Because Sword Clones attack quickly so can apply lots of Bleeding from Sharper Images, same deal with Duelist.

Greatsword produces Sharper Image damage on par with x-Pistol, due to the clones hitting 3 times with iB also hitting 3 times.

murasamune.2756:

Illusionary Elasticity – bounce skills have an extra bounce

CLEARLY the best skill of this tier

This actually is one of the best traits of this tier.

dazzling glamours – glamour skills blind foes at target location

Excellent trait for a large scale glamour build, especially with the “confuse on blind” trait.

blinding befuddlement – cause confusion when you blind a foe

Ah yes, this one.

phantasmal haste – phantasms charge 20% faster

this is actually pretty good because phantasms are a huge part of our dps but i remember reading it takes a full 26 seconds to get an extra cast out of it so ?

It doubles your phantasm DPS within 5 seconds. Increases it by 50% up through 11 seconds.

Thanks for pointing out how awesome the Illusion trait line is bro. I with I could go 40 points into Illusion and get a 4th trait.

murasamune.2756:

so the one that i see as the best is really on best for all around purposes where the others are straight niche?

All traits are “niche”.

Hello?

That’s why you can swap them out any time out of combat?

I like my clones.

I wish I had more clones.

I even slot Mirror Images for PvE so I have more clones.

It works but you need to have a build that includes automatic procs and multiple damage sources.

SI Shatter is basically the “hybrid damage” build.

I find iD unreliable for damage because:

1. Anything can block the projectiles.
2. It has a long channel and anyone that isn’t a monkeykittenkitten will dodge roll over half the damage.

They can do the same, in theory, for other phantasms, but they have to be very quick. iD has a bigass “dodge me anytime thx” sign (and sound effect).

Edit:

And ironically, GS is as good or better for Sharper Image damage, and iSwordsman just does like 15-20% more DPS in a power build.

Greatsword’s pretty much one of the best Mesmer weapons. It’s more or less the best Sharper Images condition weapon and the best direct damage power weapon with Elasticity.

Greatsword procs more Sharper Images than Pistol earlier in the fight.

Trying to phantasm army too hard, j/k j/k. Drop insp to get 20 Dom. The GS trait is pretty significant if you are using GS as your primary weapon.

Any point going anything besides Pistol offhand?

Pistol’s the one off-hand I almost never use.

Is there any point to actually using Pistol?

All the other offhands provide more damage or more utility, or both.

Temporal Curtain
— The Swiftness boon should replace shorter-duration Swiftness boons. Currently, nothing is applied if you already have Swiftness, even if there’s only 1 second left.

Temariah.9372:

Also, if anyone has any suggestions on how to make this list more organized as it grows, feel free to post. Let’s keep this thread alive. It’s important stuff!

I recommend the following sections:

1. Tooltip errors.
2. Technical bugs.
3. Not working as intended (not bugged, but not really fitting the spirit of the design).

That’s a decent notion.

I would add and say that the condition damage should either be:

1. Bleed on 1.
-or-
2. %chance / mix Burning/Poison on the MF copy.

With GW2, I would say 3 volleys of 3 parallel shots over 2 seconds. Pew … pew … pew, triple shot each. Say each bullet has a 33% chance of Burning, Poison, or direct damage. 9 shots so you could shotgun them and get all of the above.

Call it “Prismatic Barrage”, lulz.

Edit: Could also do both, but the bleed on 1 would be minimal, like 2s.

Illusion/Clone death with Adventurer runes and Endurance on weapon swap sigils is one of the more entertaining builds around. Spend half the fight hopping around invulnerable while illusions die and mess with the enemy.

Currently I’m running a GS//Sword/Focus WvW build using condition/toughness gear (Rabid stat spread) because Order of Whispers kitten armor happens to have those silly stats. Sigh. I’ll get some real stats for the build soon though … and then I will do so much damage that my enemies will flop over instantly. I’m also missing any measurable stats on all my accessories, have no runes, no sigils, no gems.

I get a kitten just thinking about how badly I will thrash people when I actually get gear. Brb, time to go get gear.

Edit: WHY IS B A D A S S CENSORED?! That’s so egregious I don’t care if I get an infraction for bypassing the filter.

Well in your previous iteration, the clone would do the bleed autoattack from mainhand pistol with a Sharper Images chance for those build. E.g. it would basically do more single target DPS than Staff clones.

Edit:

I think the 10% chance to steal a boon is bad for RNG reasons. Either steal with a higher cooldown / less damage, or break with a lower cooldown / higher damage.

Moa’s obviously the best 1v1 Mesmer Elite, although some racial elites can also get pretty brutal.

I think it’s unlikely they’d allow all 3 active damage conditions on a single weapon in any reliable fashion. Although, assuming Aimed Shot would have a decent cooldown, it’s probably ok. Would also tag it with a decent power coefficient. Burn would be like 1s, Poison maybe 1.5s. Depends on the ability’s cooldown tbh.

The shadowstep part of the clones sounds imbalanced. No other clone has that degree of active movement.

Also, I think it would be more balanced to have a lower cooldown and strip a boon rather than steal it. Also make it have a moderately good direct power ratio.

And it’s not even good min-maxing.

The first part (clone) should be 900. The swap should remain 600. IMO.

Don’t think Warden is bugged. Pretty sure it’s a perception issue since the cooldown starts when the Warden starts its attack, not when it ends.

The Curtain is placed perpendicular to your position at the end of your cast, centered on wherever your mouse was.

Into the Void moves nearby targets a fixed distance in the direction of the center of the curtain. For the purpose of Into the Void, pretend it is a black hole circle, not a “line”. It makes more sense that way.

It’s not about shattering before the phantasm dies. It’s about shattering after the phantasms use their attacks and resummoning for more attacks.

It’s a surprisingly simple concept, but you need to have a good handle on your clone/phantasm cooldowns, and your weapon swap cooldown.

I think the design is better than it appears on paper.

Not only does it have a high skillcap for people that want to maximize the class, but the class is effective enough with simple Phantasm army approaches.

Phantasm army is stronger for afk play with poor timing. It’s very effective for lazy / non-busy players. I don’t mind being lazy in solo PvE tbh, so I lean pretty hard on phantasms too.

You are demanding constructive suggestions to fix something that isn’t broken.

Passes the pipe.

One of us is high on something.

Phantasms do not need a DPS decrease to make other mechanics viable, effective, or better for various gameplay goals.

And you are incorrect: “most” people want to buff phantasms so they stop getting their 3rd phantasm overwritten by clones, to have their phantasms persist, and to have their phantasms supply more AOE damage.

That’s what wiki is for!
…

I find that they die or my target dies tbh.

Unless I’m zerging a champ with 40 people.

But if it’s 6.0 base, then -20% would be 4.8s :O.

Just a few minutes ago you were arguing that people who are putting up 3 phantasms should be shattering and re-summoning them instead of keeping them up. Now you are arguing that they shouldn’t even try because it’s not possible?

Just a few minutes ago I decided to go along with the notion that a person already had 3 phantasms up.

The discussion shifted to an area where discussing the likelihood of actually have 3 up at any given time was worth commenting on. I was simply being amenable in the first place.

I could have originally said that “anyone who’s maintaining 3 phantasms up consistently could just afk and spam 111111 because they’re in a 50v1 zerg DE”.

If you have trouble understanding the point of the OP or some other poster please say so. This thread is about illustrating some problems with mesmer mechanics, not about winning a yes/no debate where you have to refute every sentence someone types.

I’m having trouble understanding why people don’t understand that phantasms have long attack delays and can be resummoned.

Isn’t the entire point that shattering is usually detrimental to you phantasm uptime?

Shattering is not usually detrimental to my phantasm uptime because I time my shatters for minimal phantasm downtime (and compared to afk phantasms, I actually gain phantasm attack time).

Hmm, dunno. When I timed them, I counted 6 for iB/iWarlock/iD, 4 for iS.

iB is slightly trickier to time since you need to ensure you time from the same part of the animation. Don’t know if whoever provided that wiki info timed precisely, or if they pulled data from another source.

I could be mistaken, but the part that makes me dubious is the “7 → 6”. A 20% cooldown on 7s is 5.6s, not 6.0s. Game doesn’t round for those things, and there’s no reason to round for the wiki info.

Why? Seems superfluous.

1. They mirror your precision/crit. Not sure if clones pick up your total crit% (includes Fury if you have it) or just the Precision.

2. Pretty sure they mirror your vit, but not positive. I recall a specific comment/statement at some time that referenced that the “Clone HP multiplier was increased by 50%” (stress test). That implies that the Clone references some HP source, which is probably the Mesmer, although it could be a static “level times X” table.

Edit: I vaguely recall the clone hp coefficient was changed from .2 to .3 or something, maybe. Probably wrong so don’t quote me on that. It was a 50% bump though.

Very obvious channel animations are welcome, but I will counter your stomp and point out that you first have to make sure to have a weapon that summons a clone right next to your target. If you have a staff or a sceptor (or both) on swap your clone/phantams MIGHT not make it there in time… unless you’re standing right next to the stomp channeler.

Agree, but also note that your stomp-ee has an interrupt, so you can afford a delay to interrupt their “second” attempt. All of those assumes they’re not packing Stability or another effect (cough, Distortion, cough, unstoppable stomp of ownage Distortion + Blink). But, there’s only so much you can do.

Anyways, I’m not sure why you’re talking about a “daze build” which implies a more serious investment into interrupt traits, Mantra of Distraction and probably other things like Signet of Dom. That’s obviously a very specific build more as a “counter of a counter” type of build, rather than anything you’d use in general. Although I guarantee you there are some very nice builds that can abuse Diversion for certain teamplay events.

Not gonna lie though, Diversion takes the most prediction of any of the Shatters unless you have IP. But, that’s the rub.

The only point being made is that the shatter and phantasms mechanics conflict with each other. Something you cannot deny.

They only conflict with each other if you treat the phantasms as ranger pets. I like shattering my phantasms on a consistent basis. I like the fact that I have several simultaneous illusion-generating mechanisms.

Phantasms are a notable source of damage, and it’s part of the class to manage their uptime. They are not meant to last any extended amount of time, really. That situation only happens in unusual and trivial encounters (unless you are cheesing an undefended siege engine, hurr hurr, which is when I swap traits for maximum phantasm army).

People that are still on the learning curve have a hard time getting a good feel for how they actually want to manage the phantasm uptime. There are many nuances with clone replacement and phantasm attack resets … the volume and nature of threads on this forum about the topic are a pretty obvious indicator that players are still learning.

Shrug.

Timing with clones doesn’t take much, if any, skill tbh. Half the timing equation is centered on phantasm uptime management.

Clone timing is only slightly more interesting if you are using a Shatter heavy build, which is not really the current discussion.

Edit:

That aside, as you say, maintaining 3 phantasms in any fight that matters is actually hard to the point that it’s infeasible and unlikely to actually have 3 phantasms up. Because we’re not even talking about a mega AOE wipe of your phantasms. We’re talking about an add looking crosswise or cleaving a random phantasm instantly, or the boss taking a potshot and instantly erasing the phantasm.

Which begs the question why everyone is pretending that they are shattering their 3 phantasms that they never actually have.

The part where theorycraft fails is when you model and value situations that don’t actually happen, or that don’t have a real impact.

Many things can be predicted well in advance (for example Diversion on a person who is stomping) and there are other reasons to use Diversion that are not marketed on the forums very much …

If you want brutally reliable Shatters though, Illusory Persona is always an option.

Signet is the best short-term heal.

You’re all looking at this from either a 5-second burst window, or a 5-minute heal per second view.

Look at it from a more reasonable perspective you get in non-trivial solo content: 30 second fights.

In this situation, you will have the Signet regen for most of the fight, and then a small burst from the active. For Mending, you will not use it near the beginning since you will waste most of the heal — you will use Mending once during the middle of the fight. As a result, you basically get “regen x20 + 1 smaller heal” versus “1 bigger heal”.

In this case, Signet comes out ahead because the fight is over and you can let your Signet cool down. E.g. the Signet cooldown is out of scope of the fight. The analysis for a hell of a lot of solo and small-scale play works out in this fashion. In addition, the low cooldown (traitable for even lower) of Signet can synergize with other traits/runes.

So, Signet is not as bad as you may initially mathcraft. For more bursty play, naturally Signet is not the choice. But that’s why you have choices.

I think the variety of heals as-is is fine enough tbh. The consideration here should not be “we don’t have enough heals”. The consideration should be “are there any types of heals that we are really missing?”

How is having a skill that can instantly daze an opponent even while knocked down or channeling another skill considered a waste?

Because you already have F3 which does it while knocked down or channeling another skill, so you could use the utility slot on something more interesting like Feedback, Null Field, etc, unless you really want to have an extra 2 dazes, which is perfectly fine. However, using it as a crutch because you can’t play the class is wasting resources.

Shatters are simply not efficient when you have phantasms out. Shattering will mean I have to waste time resummoning the phantasms and switching weapons.

I’m not sure how it’s “wasting time” when you reset the attack cooldown on the phantasms. Resummoning them is something you want to do regardless of shatters or not, because you get more phantasm attacks in.

That is time better spend on utility and weapon skills.

Typically no. In the vast majority of cases, you’ll have time where you just use filler autoattacks, and 1 spam by and large sucks unless you’re Staff with Elasticity.

You are also ignoring the fact that phantasms die. When they die I want to resummon them.

The context we are currently discussing involves 3 Phantasms. Hence, you are not in a situation where your Phantasms die with any regularity. Therefore your segment of argument here is irrelevant by the conditions of the rest of your argument.

If they didnt die I want to stack them. Shattering doesnt come into play as it is not only unnecessary, but counter-productive.

Poorly timed shatters with poorly-timed weapon swaps and poorly-timed clone summoning is counter-productive, yes.

Poor timing is counter-productive to effective shatter use.

Phantasm fire-and-forget afk dps is a good band-aid for poor timing, yes.

It’s mostly gone on guru, but with the opening of this forum, a lot of people have come in with that misunderstanding. I think it’s passing, but it’s still funny.

Especially the 10,000 damage arc lightnings.

Sidenote: there was a guy on the Warr forums who thought the last hit of 100b was doing 8k damage.

Keep fighting the good fight to prevent nerfs to “everything not Phantasm”, but don’t expect people to gravitate away from Phantasm army builds.

It’s popular because it’s easy, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. In many ways I don’t give akittenif a player is good or bad as long as they are spamming iBerserker on the kitten Trebuchet, for example.

Of course, they’re probably bad and running iDuelist obstructed obstructed obstructed obstructed reflect reflect out of range out of range, so meh …